The present invention relates to an image capturing method. In particular, the present invention relates to an image capturing method including White Balance adjustment on a captured image.
The color of flash light (light from a flash) is usually different from the color of ambient light. Thus, when performing White Balance adjustment, the following question may arise: on the basis of which area in a captured image White Balance adjustment should be made. For example, between a subject closer to a device and a subject farther from the device, there is a difference in the ratio of flash light to ambient light applied to the subject. Because of this, depending on which of subject areas in the captured image is used for the White Balance adjustment, the result of the White Balance adjustment differs. Thus, the question is, on the basis of which subject area White Balance adjustment should be performed arises.
One of possible ways to deal with the above situation is to control the color of flash light so as to be as close as possible to the color of ambient light. This is because, if the color of flash light matches the color of ambient light, the result of White Balance adjustment does not differ depending on the subject area on the basis of which White Balance adjustment is performed. There have been approaches to make the color of flash light close to the color of ambient light, by using a plurality of light-emitting sources instead of a single light-emitting source to emit flash light. With this, the mixed color of combined light emitted from the light-emitting sources gets closer to the color of ambient light than in the case where light is emitted from such a single light-emitting source. In Japanese Patent No. 5311963 (Patent Literature 1), two light-emitting sources are used to control the color of combined flash light so as to be close to the color of ambient light. In Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2012-141445 (Patent Literature 2) and Japanese Patent No. 5007523 (Patent Literature 3), three light-emitting sources are used to control the color of combined flash light so as to be close to the color of ambient light.